Magnolia January Outside the Heard 2013

Hyped up. Pitched down. Prominent hip-hop rising star A$AP Rocky – a dude who gets Thug Love and Blog Love – is gradating from mixtapes to the big time with his debut album, LONG.LIVE.A$AP. The album will feature the buzz worthy "Goldie" and the Noah "40" Shebib produced hit, "F**kin' Problems" -- featuring hip-hop elites Drake, 2 Chainz and Kendrick Lamar. Executive produced by A$AP Rocky and A$AP Yams (no relation), LONG.LIVE.A$AP also features guest appearances by ScHoolboy Q, Santigold, Joey Bada$$, Yelawolf, Danny Brown, Action Bronson and Big K.R.I.T. A$AP Rocky takes the reins as producer and co-producer on several tracks along with along with hip hop notables such as Danger Mouse, Jim Jonsin, Rico Love, Clams Casino, Skrillex, Hit-Boy and more.

Nolwenn LeroyNolwennDecca

Nolwenn – the latest and aptly-named album from ever-stunning Nolween Leroy -- makes us rediscover the best songs from her native Brittany (a cultural region in the north-west of France) – songs already etched in our collective memory -- by blending pop tones and traditional instruments. Surrounded by Jon Kelly and other great musicians from England, Scotland and Ireland, Nolwenn brings out the Celtic soul of the inland region she loves so much, revisiting melodies from yesterday and today. This return to basics – a move Nolwenn has been planning for years – is personal, universal, beautiful, and engrossing. It’s a musical journey you so richly deserve.

Buddy GuyLive Aty LegendsRCA

In a career that spans nearly 50 years with over 50 albums released, the illustrious Buddy Guy has received 28 Blues Music Awards (formerly W. C. Handy Awards), 6 Grammy Awards, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, the first annual Great Performer of Illinois Award, a Billboard Music Awards Century Award for distinguished artistic achievement and the Presidential National Medal of Arts. Live at Legends features Guy’s last live recordings from his now-shuttered original Legends blues club in Chicago, captured during his January residency there in 2010. The album features a number of Buddy Guy live favorites including two amazing medleys: John Lee Hooker’s” Boom Boom” into Cream’s “Strange Brew” and Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child” into Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love.” In addition to the live recordings, Live at Legends includes 3 previously unreleased studio recordings from Guy’s critically acclaimed Living Proof album sessions: “Polka Dot Love,” “Coming For You,” and “Country Boy.”

Enrico RavaOn The Dance FloorECM

This live album breaks with Enrico Rava’s own traditions. In his ECM albums, all the way back to 1974’s The Pilgrim And The Stars, Rava has set his own compositions in the foreground. Not this time. Nor does he pay tribute to aspects of jazz history. Instead, on Rava on the Dance Floor the great Italian trumpeter (b. 1939) enthusiastically turns his attention to the musical universe of the late Michael Jackson. And in this unexpected context, drawing also upon the energy of the Parco della Musica Jazz Lab band, he delivers impassioned and extroverted trumpet playing. The PMJL Parco della Musica Jazz Lab is an ensemble produced by the Foundation Musica per Roma with a focus on young jazz talents. Its projects to date have all been directed by Enrico Rava, and the line-up on Rava On The Dance Floor includes pianist Giovanni Guidi from Enrico’s regular quintet (as heard on the recent Tribe album).

Eberhard WeberResumeECM

Eberhard Weber played hundreds of concerts in his time as a member of the Jan Garbarek Group, and each of them included an extended feature for the bassist alone, often effectively a spontaneous composition rather than a bass solo in strict jazz sense. For Resume, Weber has returned to recordings of these solo sequences and reworked them into an album with its own sense of flow. The unique sound of Eberhard’s customized electric bass is heard here mostly in the context of his own keyboard settings and treatments, but also augmented by the saxophones and overtone flute of Jan Garbarek (on three tracks) and by the percussion of Michael DiPasqua. Based on live recordings made between 1990 and 2007 at locations from Karlsruhe to Santiago, the album was mixed in the South of France by Weber, Manfred Eicher, Michael di Pasqua and Gerard de Haro in 2011.

Dropkick Murphys formed in 1996 in Boston, MA. The band was originally just a bunch of friends looking to play music for fun. They got started playing in the basement of a friend's barbershop with the intent to blend the musical influences they had grown up with (Punk Rock, Irish Folk, Rock, and Hardcore) into one loud, raucous, chaotic, and often out of tune mix. It’s like Gangs of New York came to yr VFW hall, but with a much less gruesome ending. Where Going Out in Style told the story of a fictional character named Cornelius Larkin -- complete with an obituary written by Michael Patrick MacDonald for the liner notes, Signed and Sealed in Blood has no such constraints. "This is just the opposite of that," bassist Ken Casey explains, "Just us having fun and making the most catchy, singalong kind of songs we can. It's not that the last album wasn't fun. It was. Going Out in Style is one of the records I'm most proud of... This time we cut loose." But he does feel that Signed and Sealed in Blood is also "almost a continuation of Going Out in Style in a musical sense, “There's an upbeat, party vibe to it. A lot of these songs, we were having such a good time writing them and just enjoying the writing process. It's the quickest we've released an album, ever, after another."

Dropkick Murphy's - SIGNED AND SEALED IN BLOOD Dropkick Murphys

The Coalition of Independent Music Stores (CIMS) is a group of some of the best independent music stores in America. CIMS was founded in 1995; its current membership is made up of 29 accounts that handle 47 stores in 21 states. Many of the accounts have been recognized by the music industry and their local communities for their outstanding dedication to customer service and developing artist support.

Each member is bound by its shared love of music, a reputation for great selection and customer service in its community, yet each CIMS account is as unique as the market it represents. Most importantly, CIMS member stores continually seek to challenge the jaded, color-by-numbers advertising and marketing of other retailers.